


Cigarette Smoke

by usetheforceponyboy



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5733247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usetheforceponyboy/pseuds/usetheforceponyboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which some swords still have to be forged, and Mara Jade doesn't always keep her promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarette Smoke

Jaina stood over Caedus’s body, panting, still high on adrenaline from the duel.  Her blade had gone straight through the heart, a perfect takedown of the enemy while leaving little to no damage to the person’s body.  She would have gotten high marks for this while she was still training at the temple- make it quick and make it clean.  A good clean-.  A thought burst into her mind.  _You were gonna fix up the galaxy, Jacen, and I was gonna keep it that way.  And Nik, he was gonna keep everyone happy in the meantime._ The pain from her sliced torso suddenly flared up in that moment, and she let out a yell as she stuffed her fist and arm into the charred area.  She fell to her knees and held herself up with her left arm over his body.  Breathing heavily, she recognized the faint smell of cigarette smoke coming from his clothes.

“Well Force, Jacen, you should thank me for getting to you before you died slowly from that habit.”  She said to the corpse.  She stayed there as she fought to continue to breathe, and realized she needed to contact the others on the comlink to let them know of her position and her need of medical assistance, but she kept fumbling it as her hand shook.  She could barely turn it on.

They say she felt nothing after he died, but that’s only partly true.  “Hell, what would… Nik say if he was here,” She felt a nothing, not just nothing.  “Well…he is kinda, since…we named this damn ship after him,”  It’s the sort that fills one’s head like a gas, and blocks any thoughts yet no thoughts at all.  “Come to think of it, it was a good idea of yours that…that we should…meet here.  I don’t think…all three of us had been…in the same place…since forever!  And now it’s done.”  The paradox only becomes a sort of white noise that seems to only be broken by speaking aloud to give the illusion of being coherent.  A voice tried to communicate to Jaina on the comlink, but she couldn’t focus enough to answer it.  She crawled away from the body muttering “It’s done, it’s done, good and clean, good and-“  Her world was swaying to and fro.  A confused voice kept calling her name over and over again, but she had collapsed and lost consciousness.

Her name continued to be repeated in her thoughts.  “Jaina! Hey-“But it was a different voice.  A woman’s, but deep, almost husky.  “Rogue leader!”  Jaina’s eyes fluttered open.  “Ha! So that’s the magic word.”  She was on a cold bench along the wall, but she was wrapped in a blanket.  “I heard you talking in your sleep so I thought I should wake you up.”  It was a giant, empty carrier space, with high ceilings and walls that gave a certain vastness when empty, which it was.  A slight shaking could be felt every once in a while if one was close enough to the wall.  They were on a ship, a large one, and she was next to someone’s lap.  She slowly raised her head to look up at that someone, and that someone was smiling down at her.

“Mara?” 

“Mmm hmm.”  Mara affirmed as she took a puff from a long, thin cigarette.  A nine-year-old Jaina stared for a moment at it.  “Don’t tell Nik about this.  I know I made that promise and all, but I have to calm my nerves somehow after that ordeal.”  Jaina didn’t want to admit it to anyone, but she actually adored the scent of fresh cigarette smoke.  She didn’t know why.  _Nik._

“Where are they?  Are they alright?”  She sat straight up, nearly knocking the blanket off.

“Everyone is perfectly fine and sleeping in the housing quarters in the upper deck.  You were so tired out that you fell asleep almost as soon as we got you on board.  I decided to sit up with you in case you woke up.”  Her effortless confidence echoed slightly around the area (and through memories in many cases.)

“They wouldn’t let me sleep.”

“Yeah I, I figured they wouldn’t.”  Mara looked away then and took another puff.  “By the way since you’re up I gotta tell ya.  I am really impressed with how you held up during that crisis, I mean going through all that and keeping you and your brothers in one piece?  Jaina Solo, you’re magnificent.”  She turned and hugged the sleepy kid. 

Jaina buried her face into her soft, red hair and whispered “Why did they take us?”

Mara drew back and snuffed her cigarette out on the ground with her boot as she thought of a good enough answer.  “Because of who you are they didn’t see you as a person. They,” She took a deep breath.  “saw you as a tool to use against your parents.  So that they would give in to their will in order to get you back.  But your mom and dad didn’t.”  She placed her hand on Jaina’s thin shoulder.  “And we got you back safe and sound.” 

The hand on her shoulder was bandaged up tightly, and Jaina could see the spots on Mara’s knuckles and wrist were some blood seeped through.  “Did you have to hurt people to save us?”  This girl was kidnapped, beaten, and sleep deprived and still worried about whether people were injured in the process of rescuing her and her brothers.  Mara barely stifled a chortle at how much she sounded like her uncle when she asked that.

Jaina looked up at her with big, sad eyes, and looked genuinely heartbroken and betrayed.  Mara started to panic a bit at her mistake, since the girl looked as though she would burst into tears.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.  Look.  Yes…some people did get-injured-in the process of getting you guys back.  Sometimes you gotta do what’s best for the people you love, even if that means hurting someone else in the process.” 

“I don’t wanna have to do that.”

“Of course you don’t _want_ to.  Unfortunately, with the life you were born into, you might have to at some point.”  Jaina started to choke up a bit as tears started to gather in her eyes.  “But Jaina, if I could I would protect you from all that.  I would protect you from the universe.”  At four in the morning an oddly sentimental and poetic statement is almost required, as anyone who has had conversations this late (or early) in the day would say when discussing the inevitable reality.  A tear or two even ran down stoic Mara’s face as she held Jaina tightly against her chest and pressed her face into her unwashed hair.  For a moment the two little tired souls bound together in safety inside the vault protecting them from the universe speeding by outside on their way home.  

“I’m scared, Mara.”

“I would tell you anything to make it better.”

The bruised, scrawny, shaking child was something Mara was all too familiar with.  Why did it have to be her best friends’ only daughter that she would encounter it again?

“Just-just don’t leave me all alone.”

Mara hastily wiped away her tears.  Embarrassed, she tried to hide the shaking in her voice.  “H-Hell, Jaina, I wouldn’t do that.  I promise.”  Jaina adjusted herself so her head rested on her shoulder.  “For now, just so you know, I think everything will be all right.”  She leaned her head for a bit back on the wall and closed her eyes for a bit.  She took a quick breath to compose herself, opened her eyes and said “let’s get you back with the rest of your family then.”

“Can we just stay here?”

“Sure.”

As Jaina closed her eyes to finally get some more sleep, Mara did something she had almost never done before, “But dammit,” she thought, “did this girl need it”.  She kissed the top of her head, and held her closer.

Blackness fell again as young Jaina went back to sleep. She became aware of her surroundings before she opened her eyes. She was laying down and heard lots of voices, even some yelling. She was being moved quickly, on a shaking bed.  She became hyper aware of the needles and tubes, going in and out of her body.  Older Jaina awoke yet again.  It was the present, and doctors and nurses yelled to each other above her that she was conscious.  She knew she would recover fully physically, but how to go on after this was an entirely different journey to recovery.  By herself.  Which was more terrifying to her than any Jedi mission she had ever embarked on.  Complete silence was something foreign, and something she was sure would drive her mad.

  _Oh Force,_

  ** _Take comfort in the fact, that though you stand alone_** ,

_Mara why didn’t you keep your promise?_

That was her last thought before smoke filled her head again, and her nostrils filled with the sweet death of cigarettes.  

**_others take shelter in the shadow that you cast_** _._


End file.
